Today, the Palestinian issue is going through one of its darkest and most decisive turns in its modern history. The ongoing genocide in Gaza, and the accompanying systematic destruction of the social fabric and the attempt to erase the cultural memory of the Palestinian people, is taking place before the eyes of a world system in which grave moral collapses, blatant geopolitical opportunism, and widespread Arab and international silence – and even complicity – are evident.
What is happening is not just military aggression, but rather a multidimensional war in which narrative, awareness, and historical legitimacy have become central arenas of conflict. In this context, knowledge production is no longer a neutral academic act, but rather has become a pillar of resistance, shaping identity, and maintaining collective existence.
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In the midst of this reality, the book “Lessons of Jerusalem and Palestine – Kudüs ve Filistin Dersleri,” published in Turkish by Mardin Artuklu University Press, stands out as an ambitious scientific project and a cognitive response that is at the forefront of the battle of awareness.
This massive collective work, which is 535 pages long and includes 25 specialized papers as well as 43 documentary materials, represents an academic and educational intervention that aims to provide a new generation of students with a solid understanding of the Palestinian issue.
The book was drafted to be a course that serves undergraduate and graduate programs, and its ongoing translation into Arabic and English reflects a desire to expand its scientific impact as a solid reference for education and spreading public awareness.
Intellectual architecture…building “resistance awareness”
At the heart of the book stands a clearly defined editorial project formulated by Professor Ibrahim Ozguchar, who transformed his university into one of the most prominent Turkish centers involved in Palestine studies. In his introduction, Ozguchar frames the book as an integrated educational project aimed at building a “resistant awareness of knowledge,” which is an organizing thread that resonates in the various chapters of the work.
The editor believes that dealing with the Palestinian issue cannot be based on one specialty, but rather requires adopting a multidisciplinary perspective that includes history, political science, religion, sociology, and studies of cultural memory.
The book becomes a scientific and institutional attempt to resist cognitive erasure, preserve historical truth, and consolidate Palestine’s presence in contemporary university education.
Choosing the city of Mardin as the center for this project carries additional significance. This historical metropolis, located on the borders of Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and the Levant, has formed, over centuries, a civilizational bridge between the peoples who contributed to shaping the history of Palestine itself.
The seven chapters of the book
The book “Lessons of Jerusalem and Palestine” represents a coherent cognitive work whose seven chapters accumulate to establish an integrated pedagogical project aimed at building historical and critical Palestinian awareness among university students. The book begins with the editor’s introduction written by Ibrahim Ozguchar, in which he defines the moral and missional framework of the project, linking it to the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and calling for cognitive resistance that restores man’s moral role at a moment of global collapse of conscience. They are as follows.
Chapter one – Introduction and foundational concepts: Prepared by Ibrahim Ozguchar, Khaled Owaisi, and Ahmet Selcukoglu; It lays the epistemological foundations of the book. It liberates the central concepts related to Jerusalem and Palestine, exposes the colonial distortions inflicted on knowledge, and proves that the Palestinian issue is not only a historical issue but rather a current moral and civilizational responsibility.
Chapter Two – Jerusalem is a holy city: In it, Abdulaziz Kirnchal and Elder Hasanoglu (in two studies on Judaism and Christianity) present a theological reading that reveals the impact of sanctity in shaping identity and narratives of legitimacy, and the chapter shows how religious texts turn into tools of political conflict.
Chapter Three – Historical paths: Tours the successive eras of Jerusalem. Where Khaled Owaisi deals with history up to the Crusades, Ihsan Surya Sarma and Abdulaziz Qirnchal study the era of Saladin, while Issa Baraiya deals with the Ottoman era, and Sibal Ceylan Yigit reviews Sultan Abdul Hamid’s policy towards Jerusalem and Palestine. The chapter reveals the models of just governance and coexistence that characterized Islamic times, in contrast to the modern replacement structure.
Chapter Four – Colonialism, Zionism and occupation: It includes a theoretical analysis of Zionism presented by Mem Kemal Akke, then studies by Esra Cavusoglu, Mustafa Aksuz, and Menderes Kurt, on the policies of the British Mandate and Palestinian society before the Nakba and the replacement project since 1948. The chapter proves that Zionism is a comprehensive system of demographic and cognitive engineering.
Chapter Five – City, place and art: In it, Sharifa Eroğlu Mamish studies Jerusalem’s urbanism, Bilal Tobrak reveals the use of antiquities to make claims of hegemony, and Anas Ac presents art as a language of resistance and memory preservation.
Chapter Six – Resistance, human rights and the current reality: It is the most diverse; Where Abdelkader documents all the violations, Sedki Karadeniz discusses the right of return, Abdelghani Bozqort analyzes the resistance movement, while Hajar Shahnalb and Iman Rubin Abdelaziz Abu Haddura present the role of women, and Mehmet Raqiboğlu concludes with a bloody reading of the genocide crimes in Gaza, so that the chapter shows that resistance is an act of existence and not a political choice.
Chapter Seven – Future prospectsPrepared by Abdulaziz Qirnchal and Ibrahim Ozguchar, it opens an intellectual horizon about the future of the issue and the decline of Zionism under the pressure of demographic, moral and political realities.
Documentary Supplement: Guarding Memory
The documentary section represents one of the most prominent intellectual contributions to the book. This vast wealth of material chronicling places, events, and personalities constitutes a parallel approach to building spatial memory and historical awareness.
The introduction to places (such as the Mount of Olives and the Ibrahimi Mosque) gives the reader the ability to read the land through its cultural layers. As for the events, they build a time frame that allows the student to trace the curve of genocide and resistance. The educational dimension becomes deeper with the biographies of personalities (from Edward Said and Izz al-Din al-Qassam, to Mandela and Ahmed Yassin); To be “value mirrors” through which the student sees models of moral stability and cross-border resistance.
This appendix turns the book into a “visual narrative archive,” so that Palestine no longer remains a theoretical topic, but rather a human reality in which geography intersects with blood, and oppression with hope.
Evaluation, contributions and development prospects
The book makes a significant contribution to the Turkish academic scene with its unprecedented comprehensiveness and the coherence of its analytical vision centered around human dignity and the ethics of liberation. Its strength is evident in the wealth of knowledge it has summoned through an elite group of established professors, in addition to its subjection to a rigorous scientific review that increases its credibility as a university reference.
For further educational enrichment, it is proposed in future editions to include a “brief terminological dictionary” that defines political and historical concepts to facilitate reading for non-specialists, and to expand the participation of Palestinian researchers from Gaza, the West Bank, and the occupied interior to deepen the narrative and link knowledge to authentic experience.
Regional impact and roadmap
During the last two decades, Türkiye has witnessed a remarkable rise that has made it one of the most important academic centers in studies of Jerusalem and Palestine, producing research, formulating awareness, and shaping public discourse. The book “Lessons of Jerusalem and Palestine” comes at the heart of this momentum as a pivotal contribution that strengthens Türkiye’s leadership in building regional awareness of the issue. Turkish universities have become a key player in establishing a cognitive and moral vision among students in the Islamic world, and this book represents a mature model for this mission.
By spearheading this project, the city of Mardin declares that the Palestinian issue is not an issue limited to the major capitals alone, but rather is carried by the entire Turkish conscience.
Its significance is deepened by its publication from the city of Mardin, with its cumulative border history that makes it a civilizational bridge between cultures. It is as if the city is declaring that the Palestinian issue is not an issue limited to the major capitals alone, but rather is carried by the entire Turkish conscience.
At the international level, the book has a high potential for accreditation in Arab, European and Asian universities looking for multidisciplinary methodological material on Palestine. Its issuance coincides with the global shift towards “general science related to Palestine,” where academic knowledge becomes a tool for awareness and justice. Therefore, the book represents an important regional milestone and a qualitative addition to the global effort seeking to consolidate the justice of the Palestinian cause.
Paths opened by this project
The book “Lessons of Jerusalem and Palestine” is not an isolated work, but rather a gateway that leads to broad paths of cognitive, educational and research development. Perhaps the most prominent of these paths is the possibility of developing a trilingual academic series: Turkish-Arabic-English, which allows the exchange of knowledge between the widest range of universities, and creates real bridges for academic dialogue extending from the Middle East to Europe and Southeast Asia.
The book’s concluding chapter on “The Future of the Palestinian Issue” represents fertile ground for forming new research agendas that rethink geopolitical maps, resistance studies, demographic transformations, and developments in international law in light of current changes. There is also a clear need to expand the digital and documentary content of the project, through multimedia archives, interactive maps, and short educational clips that enrich the classroom experience.
The book also opens the door to effective student activities: reading circles, youth forums, mini-conferences, and community awareness projects. In essence, this book could be the nucleus of a joint Turkish-Palestinian school of knowledge, combining historical memory, interdisciplinary methodology, and moral commitment to justice, and preparing an academic generation capable of drawing a balanced global narrative for the Palestinian issue.
Connotation and final evaluation
The book “Lessons of Jerusalem and Palestine” stands as more than a comprehensive academic work; It is a statement of awareness that aspires to restore the moral compass and historical depth in teaching the Palestinian issue within the university. Through its elegant blend of historical narrative, political analysis, cultural reading, and documentary testimony, the book formulates a multi-dimensional cognitive framework that enables students and researchers to deal with one of the most pressing and complex issues of the era.
Thanks to its interactive nature and its clear educational approach, the book represents a pioneering step in university education about Palestine in Turkey, and a model that can be adapted in universities around the world. It is a work worthy of being read, taught, discussed, and built upon in subsequent educational and research projects. In the end, this book gives its reader an intellectual anchor and a moral compass to understand Palestine with firm awareness and historical responsibility.
* Associate Professor of Jurisprudence and its Principles, Faculty of Theology – Mardin Artuklu University.
